Irish Portrait Artists

Of all the genres, portraiture is arguably
the most affected by the ethos and prosperity of the times, not least
because of its technical demands on the artist. Portraitists tend to come
from those with a background in academic
art, which is no trivial barrier. Finding customers is another issue.
For centuries, the only regular source of patronage for visual
arts in Ireland, were Anglo-Irish merchants or country landowners,
along with those from the upper ranks of the ruling administration, in
Dublin, Cork or other
provincial centres.

As a result, many would-be portrait painters
left Ireland in the 18th and 19th centuries to pursue their careers in
London, where artist studios and potential patrons were significantly
more plentiful. Some returned, most did not: at least not until the era
of post-war independence.

Initially thereafter, the demands of statehood
provided a valuable boost for portraiture, in the form of commissions
to portray a range of Irish heroes, both living and deceased, as well
as an increased number of works for the clergy. Unfortunately, the Second
World War and the resulting economic depression swiftly put an end to
this and triggered a new wave of artistic emigration. Since then, advances
in photography and video have largely
displaced the fine art of portraiture as a means of personal commemoration.

Early Irish Portrait Painting

Portrait
art began in Ireland during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth
centuries, some fifty years or so before the advent of topographical 'land
portraits' or landscapes. Its earliest exponents passed largely unrecorded,
except for Garret
Morphy (fl.1680-1716), who dominated the genre at the end of the 17th
century, and the lesser known Thomas Bate (fl.1690-1700).

The Dublin-born but London-based Charles
Jervas (1675-1739) was the top Irish portraitist of the early eighteenth
century, trailed somewhat by the more flamboyant Dublin-based Hugh Howard
(1675-1737).

Then came the first major Irish portrait
master, the Tipperary-born James
Latham (1696-1747), whose paintings had a significant impact on his
contemporaries and followers. The latter included the semi-Rococo artist
Stephen Slaughter (1697-1765), the painter and printmaker Thomas
Frye (1710-62), as well as the less important Philip
Hussey (1715-83) and Anthony Lee (fl.1724-67). The Cork history painter
James Barry (1741-1806) who
established himself in London during the 1770s and 1780s and (for a time)
became Professor of Painting at the London
Royal Academy, was another skilled portraitist of the period, as was
another Corkman - Nathaniel
Grogan (c.1740-1807).

Portrait ofReverend Ian Paisley.
(2008) By David Nolan, one of the
top Irish contemporary portraitists.

Among notable portrait artists working
in Dublin, were Nathaniel Hone the Elder (1718-84), Hugh
Douglas Hamilton (1739-1808) who specialized in pastels and chalks,
Thomas Hickey
(1741-1824) whose preferred media also included crayon, Francis Robert
West (1749-1809) and the master miniature-painter Horace
Hone (1756-1825).

Other interesting artists included Matthew
William Peters (1741-1814), the Corkman Robert
Fagan (1767-1816) who painted many of his classical portraits in Italy,
and the Dublin artist Robert Home (1767-1834). Ulster, meanwhile, produced
three talented portraitists: Robert Hunter (fl.1752-1800), Joseph Wilson
(fl.1770-1800) and Thomas Robinson (d.1810). Hunter was largely based
in Dublin, Robinson in Belfast, while Wilson worked in both cities.

Although a number of Irish
artists - like, Edward Hayes (1797-1864) and the miniaturist John
Comerford (1770-1832) - were busy with portraiture in Ireland in the early
nineteenth century, the most famous artist of the genre was the London-based
Sir Martin
Archer Shee (1769-1850), a Dubliner whose family came from Kilkenny
and Mayo. Shee later became President of the Royal Academy. Two other
notable Irish artists working abroad during this period include the miniaturists
Adam Buck (1759-1833) and Samuel Lover (1797-1868). These were followed
by two exceptional talents: the versatile genre-painter, landscapist and
portraitist William
Mulready (1786-1863) from County Clare, and the great Daniel
Maclise (1806-70). Unlike the lesser-known Irish artist Richard Rothwell
(1800-68), who went (unsuccessfully) from portraits to history painting,
Maclise made the move with no apparent difficulty, securing his reputation
as a large-scale history painter on the back of his early skills in portraiture.
A major contributor to Victorian
art in Britain, his murals in the Palace of Westminster set the standard
for narrative painting for years to come.

But towering over his contemporaries with
his draughtsmanship and style, at least during the first decade and a
half of the 20th century, was the great Sir William Orpen (1878-1931),
whose professionalism and polish influenced Irish artists for decades
to come, including: Margaret
Clarke (1888-1961), Sean
Keating (1889-1977), James
Sinton Sleator (1889-1950), Leo
Whelan (1892-1956), and Maurice
Macgonigal (1900-1979). For Orpen's position in the pantheon of famous
artists from Ireland, see Most
Expensive Irish Paintings.

Among the next generation of Irish portrait
painters, many of whom were (and are) also active in other genres - are
Basil Blackshaw (b.1932);
the great Edward McGuire
(1932-1986) who studied under Lucian
Freud; and Brian Bourke
(b.1936), to name but a tiny few. In recent times, the classical style
of portrait painting has been revived by Irish artists like Ken Hamilton
(b.1956). See also: Oil Painters
of Ireland.